


swing of the battement tendu

by faorism



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Ballet, Character Study, Drabble, Gen, High Heels Suck And Are Instruments Of Torture, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22086688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faorism/pseuds/faorism
Summary: The touch of something solid and steady draws in the rest of her like the cling of a last drop of wine in a glass.
Kudos: 2





	swing of the battement tendu

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for a talon zine that i don't think was ever published. after two years of this sitting in my drive, i remembered to finally share it.

Amélie does not make it to the settee. 

She intends to, as it's all she has thought of for hours. Days, even. Weeks. The second she read the mention of Colonel Desmarais in her mission dossier, she remembered his gift from their last meeting. Knew he would be expecting to see her wearing the strappy monstrosities the Colonel's sister—fancying herself a shoe designer—paid critics handsomely to applaud into fashion. 

In anticipation for this exact moment, after the evening has wrought pain from heel to nail, Amélie had longed for her settee in all its pristine beauty, with its curved cabriole arms commissioned to perfectly match the molding of her bow windows. Beautiful and, above all else, functional. Comfortable. Usable. Unlike these heels.

Amélie wants to sink into the sofa's indulgent cradle that's soft and pretty and mindlessly hers, but instead, her hand finds the threshold between entryway and drawing room. The touch of something solid and steady draws in the rest of her like the cling of a last drop of wine in a glass. Even as she eyes the lush cushions only a few steps away, Amélie leans against the wall, as thankful as she is inelegant, and as inelegant as she is exhausted. 

In the dark of her loft, face pressed to the cool wall, she considers sliding down to the floor to sit, just for the novelty of it. Then she imagines the barbarism of her tight dress hiked up to her hips to accommodate the position… imagines the vulnerability of her body curling on the floorboards in surrender… 

Amélie stays standing. 

She wants to stay standing—unmoving, unbothered, forever. She has shrugged off bullets and grenade explosions and chemical burns and jeering scientists, yet when a pulse of pain squeezes her feet, she cannot ignore her night's curse for a moment longer. With effort Amélie extracts the twisted leather contraptions binding her. Next to her bruised and cut up and swollen feet, she learns to hate the heels again. They are the exact shape of ugly that looks unbearably expensive, which is all that matters to stupid men with money. Desmarais is a stupid, stupid man. He, after all, had thought a gift would make her fall for him. Instead, she feels nothing beyond her feet. 

Though childish, she doesn't resist the impulse to roll her ankles against the ache there. 

To stretch her toes forward. 

To flinch her arch as it spasms through its freedom. 

There's pain to stand there, even leaning most of her weight against the threshold, but a gutdeep rhythm as steady as her gunsights calls her. Stretch forward. Position. Return. Flex. Forward. (…one and two and…) Her feet are wrong. Sloppy. She moves them heel to heel and bites through the familiar/unfamiliar strain on her thighs to fit the first position. (…three and four and…) It's easy to swing one foot toward, brutalized forever-blue toes pointed. Position. Return. 

When she was young and just starting, she would practice until her entire feet turned blue with bruises. Amélie wore thick white socks until she had learned the steps properly.

Swing—position—return—swingpositionreturn—

It has been a while since she has seen the ballet. Amélie has not seen ballet since... since she became… (…one and two and…) She can go. She has the money. 

And no one will stop her. Amélie has been given far more leniency than she had before, at the very beginning, not that she would have known what to do with such freedom then. Now they think they have loosened the leash like gentle handlers to a beloved pet, allowing her privileges like clothing and rich food and this apartment. (…three and four and…) They believe letting her keep her indulgences mean they keep _her_. 

They are fools. 

She laughs, quick and mean, at the thought. Then she laughs, quicker and meaner still, as her left foot involuntarily flexes again into demi-pointe. She stills the action midway. Hateful. To be so moved by a pair of terrible heels a man hoped to see her in… perhaps she too is a fool. 

And it is late.

It is late, and she has been thinking of her sette and nothing else for days and hours—with the exception of the past handful of misguided minutes. Minutes she presses into nothingness as she rests her feet into sixth position… no. The past ten minutes she presses flat against the floor, from heel to the ball of her feet. Then Amélie hobbles, finally, to her settee as the biting pain of her feet wretches her movements into uneven jolts. She thinks then, not of the memory of a woman she once knew, but of comfort and beauty and curved cabriole arms that hug her body in its luxurious embrace.  
  



End file.
